Picture of Demi Salvatore
Old Lockwood Cellar
Eliot and Althea are walking through the tunnel in the cellar. "So, the Lockwoods really have no idea that these tunnels are underneath their property?" Eliot asks.
"Careful where you shine that thing. Bats hate the light" Althea mentions the flashlight.
"Wait, what?"
Demi secretly comes up and whispers behind him "Eliot!" He turns around and sees her "Boo!" He jumps from fright.
"Ah! God, Demi!" He gasps.
"Scaredy-cat!"
"Just ignore her. That's what I do" Althea tells him.
"So, you really can't get in?" Eliot asks.
"No. seems even the ancient Lockwoods were anti-vampire"
"What do you mean, ancient?" Eliot asks her.
"See for yourself" Demi gestures forward. They walk further into the tunnels, to the cave with drawings on the walls. "Well, this is as far as I get to go"
Eliot enters the chamber and shines his flashlight on the walls with the drawings "What's all this?"
"Well, as far as I can tell, it's a story. In a simple, archaeological terms, it's a really, really old story" Althea points at the wall "That right there, is the moon cycle" points at another drawing "A man, a wolf"
Eliot stares at the drawings "A werewolf"
"Yeah, it's the Lockwood Diaries: Pictionary-Style" Demi jokes.
"I don't understand. I thought the Lockwoods came here with the Original founders in the 1860s"
"I don't know. Maybe the Lockwoods did, but according to this wall, these werewolves have been here a lot longer than that" Althea tells him.
"How long?"
"Long. It gets better. Show him, Thea"
"Names. They're not native. They're written in Runic, a Viking script"
"Vikings?"
"This name here. I translated it and it reads Nicolette"
"Colette" Eliot realizes.
"And Elinor...and Richard" Althea shows the names on the wall.
"These are the names of the original family?" Eliot asks.
"Carved into a cave that's been here since way before the founding of Mystic Falls. Or even the entire new world, for that matter" Althea tells him.
"Okay, this has gotta be one of Colette's fakes" Eliot says not believing it.
"That's what I said" Demi says.
"That could be true, except the last name up here made us think otherwise" Althea shows the last name.
"What's the name?" Eliot asks.
"Mikael"
"Mikael...Mikael, as in, the vampire hunter who knows how to kill Colette?"
"Yep. I now like to call him Papa original" Demi smirks.
Althea takes photos of the drawings.
**********
Salvatore Boarding House
Eliot enters the house and hears music, while Richard walks into the foyer with champagne glasses "Hey! What's up?" He greets him cheerfully.
"You invited me over? To talk?" Eliot asks.
"All right boys, have at it!" six boys in various suits walk in the room "Okay, now twirl please" they twirl and show off the suits.
"You compelled your own private runway show?" Eliot asks.
"I need a homecoming suit. So, what do you think? Pick one"
"I'm not here to help you shop. I'm here to talk about why you don't want me to wake up Mikael"
Richard rushes to one of the boys, grabs his neck and vamps out "I said pick one, Eliot"
"The...orange one"
"There. It wasn't so hard, was it?" he turns to the boys "Go away. Remember nothing" the boys leave and he picks up his champagne glass and walks to Eliot "You do not threaten me. You'll learn what I allow you to learn. Is that clear?"
Eliot nods. Richard walks past him and Eliot turns and watches him.
**********
Richard opens the door to Stella's room and enters. Eliot stays at the doorway. "How fun is this...?" He starts opening drawers.
"We shouldn't be here..." Eliot tells him.
"Course we should! Come on, like you've never wanted to snoop" He holds up Stella's underwear. "Thongs. A lot has changed since the twenties"
"Are you gonna root through her stuff all night or are you gonna start to tell me your story?"
"Ah...you really are no fun. What do you want to know?"
Eliot walks into the room "Well, Elinor said that your father was a landowner in Europe. How did you guys end up here?"
Richard is still going through Stella's stuff "My parents had just started a family, when a plague struck their homeland. They lost a child to it. They wanted to escape and protect their future family from the same fate"
"So, how did you end up here? This part of the world hadn't even been discovered yet"
Richard laughs "Not by anyone in your history books. But my mother knew the witch Ayana, who heard from the spirits of a mystical land where everyone was healthy...blessed by the gifts of speed and strength. That lead my family here, where we lived amongst those people"
"The werewolves?"
"To us, they were just our neighbors. My family lived in peace with them for over 20 years, during which time my family had more children, including me"
"You make it sound so normal"
"It was"
**********
Flashback to the 900s
"Once a month our family retreated into the caves beneath our village. The wolves would howl through the night and by morning we'd return home..."
Richard is looking at different sorts of necklaces/talismans hanging on a rope in Ayana's window. He touches one and it burns his finger "Ayana, you burned me!"
"That is not yours to touch"
"Mother!" Colette screams from outside.
"Is that Nicolette? Something is wrong" Richard tells Ayana.
Colette is carrying the dead body of their little brother Henrik.
"Henrik!"
"Mother!"
"One full moon, Colette and my youngest brother Henrik snuck out to watch the men turn into beasts. That was forbidden. Henrik paid the price..."
"No, no! What happened?" Esther falls to her dead son's side.
"The wolves! I am sorry, I'm so sorry" Colette sobs holding her knees. Richard is holding Colette.
"We must save him. Please, there must be a way!" Esther asks Ayana.
"The spirits will not give us a way, Esther. Your boy is gone" Ayana tells her.
"No! No!" Esther clutches Henrik's body.
"And that was the beginning of the end of peace with our neighbors..."
**********
Back in Stella's room "And one of the last moments my family had together as humans" Eliot's phone vibrates, snapping them out of Richard's memories. "You better get that. That'll be Demi checking up on you"
Eliot answer his phone "Hello?"
"Hey!" Demi greets.
"Demi, where are you?"
Demi is in a bar where music is playing loudly "No idea, but I'm pretty sure I'm overdressed...still standing?"
"Yes, I'm fine, but I can't talk right now"
"I'll be at the bar" Stella tells Demi.
Eliot hears her voice "Is that Stella?"
"Yeah, I kinda went off a bit. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing"
"Demi! How could you let her out?"
"I got this back, Eliot" She hangs up.
**********
Richard is lying on the bed, going through one of Stella's diaries.
"Did you get your fill of snooping yet? Can we get on with the story?" Eliot asks.
Richard gets up; he picks up a photo of Eliot and Stella from a table "Honestly, I don't get you two as a couple"
"Why would you? You don't know anything about who she really is" Eliot tells him with attitude.
"I know exactly who she is. She's a vampire. We're predatory species" He leans close to Eliot's face "We don't have time to care about humans and their silly little lives"
"Is that why you did that runway show earlier? Cause you don't care about the Homecoming dance...You know what, I'm just gonna go" He gets up.
"You haven't even heard half the story"
"And you are not going to tell it. you're just bored and looking for someone to push around. Find someone else to play with...maybe you can compel yourself a friend" Eliot starts to leave.
"The necklace wasn't Stella's to give. It belonged to the original witch"
Eliot turns around "The one who put the hybrid curse on Colette?"
"Not just the hybrid cure. She's the one who turned us into vampires"
**********
"I'm thirsty. Do you want a drink?" Richard goes down to the library with Eliot following behind him.
"So, vampirism was a form of protection?" Eliot asks.
"What else would it be?"
"A curse?" Eliot offers.
"My parents only saw a way of keeping their children alive"
"Yeah, but why stay, if they were so afraid of the werewolves? Why not...leave?" Eliot asks.
"Pride...My father didn't want to run anymore. He wanted to fight and be superior to the wolves. Where they could bite, we had to bite harder. Where they had speed, we had to faster. Agility, strength, senses..."
**********
"In her hands? How could she do anything?" Eliot asks.
"Because my mother was also a witch"
"What?"
"The witch of the original family. The original witch?" they enter the library. Richard searches through shelves "Where do they keep their best vintage?"
"But if your mother was a witch, then..."
"Am I? No, a witch is nature's servant; a vampire is an abomination of nature. You can either be one or the other, never both. My mother did this for us. She did not turn"
"How did you turn?" Eliot asks.
"She called upon the sun for life, and the ancient white oak tree, one of nature's eternal objects, for immortality. That night, my father offered us wine laced with blood. And then he drove his sword through our hearts"
Eliot is stunned "He killed you?" he whispers.
"And he wasn't delicate about it either" Richard takes a bottle of wine, breaks its neck off with one motion of his hand and throws it into the fireplace.
**********
Flashback
Shortly after Mikael turned his children into vampires; Richard and Nicolette awaken on the floor with blood on their clothes.
"Richard..." Colette wakes.
"Blood! What happened?" Richard gasps, touching his shirt where he had been stabbed.
"You will be alright! We will all be alright" Colette tries to comfort him. Mikael enters with a girl "What are you doing?" Colette asks confused and scared.
"We must finish what we started!" He pushes the village girl onto her knees in front of them "You have to drink if you want to live" He cuts the girl's wrist open.
"We had to drink more blood to complete the ritual"
"Drink!" Mikael tells Richard. Richard hesitates "Drink!" Colette tries to stop him, but Mikael pushes her aside; Mikael then pushes Richard's head to the wound. "Drink!" Richard starts to drink the girl's blood. He drinks deeply, and dark veins appear around his eyes.
"It was euphoric! The feeling of power was indescribable...but the witch Ayana was right about the consequences. The spirits turned on us, and nature fought back...for every strength there would be a weakness..."
Richard gets burned by sunlight through the window.
"The sun became our enemy. It kept us indoors for weeks..."
Richard is walking around outside during the day, glancing at his daylight ring.
"And though my mother found a solution, there were other problems..."
Villagers are running into their homes at the sight of Richard coming toward them.
"Neighbors who had opened their homes to us could now keep us out"
Richard is touching a vervain plant and gets burned by it.
"Flowers at the base of the white oak burned, and prevented compulsion. And the spell decreed that the tree that gave us life could also take it away...so we burned it to ground"
The huge tree is enveloped in flames, as Mikael, Elinor, Richard and Colette watch.
"But the darkest consequence was something my parents never anticipated..."
Villagers are carrying a slaughtered pig tied to a rod to be spit-roasted.
"The hunger. Blood...had made us reborn and it was blood that we craved above all else. We could not control it..."
Richard is staring at the villagers; he gasps and tries to resist, but then vamps out and hurries to them and kills them by feeding on them.
"And with that, the predatory species was born..."
**********
Bar
Demi and Stella go to the bar and sit down and order drinks where a male bartender is working. "Two more!"
"Alright! Tell me what's up. What's the point of the jailbreak, hm?" Stella asks.
"I thought you could use a hug, Stella"
"Come on, Demi. You know Eliot is gonna hate you for letting me out. And we both know that you care about what he thinks..."
"Maybe I wanted to remind you what freedom was like, before Colette took it from you"
"As long as Colette is alive, I do what she says" Stella tells her.
"That's my point, Stella. You've given up! Now you could sit around and be her little bitch, or you get mad enough and you can do something about it"
"Demi, she can't be killed" Stella reminds her.
"maybe I can help with that" Mikael walks up behind them "The Salvatore girls, I presume?"
"Mikael" Stella recognizes him.
**********
Salvatore Boarding House
"Why did Mikael start hunting Colette?" Eliot asks.
"When Nik made her first human kill, it triggered her werewolf gene. With that, she became my father's greatest shame"
"Yeah. Elinor told me this part of the story. Your mother had an affair with one of the werewolf villagers. Colette wasn't his daughter" Eliot tells him.
"She tried to make it right. She put the hybrid curse on Nik to suppress her werewolf side, and then she turned her back on her. But Mikael's greatest weakness as a human was his pride. As a vampire, that was magnified. He went on a rampage and killed half the village. Then he came home and killed her" Richard tells him.
Eliot is stunned "Mikael killed your mother?" He whispers.
"He said she broke his hear so he would break hers. He tore it from her chest as Nik watched"
**********
Flashback
Colette buries their mother as Richard watches.
"Afterwards, my father took off in a rage, and the rest of my family scattered. Nik stayed, so she could help me bury her. She knew I had to say goodbye to my mother"
Richard and Colette stand side by side at the grave. "I know you think she hated you, Nicolette, but she did not. She was just afraid. I'm sorry she turned her back on you. I will never do that"
Elinor walks toward them and joins them "Nor will I"
"We stick together as one. Always and forever" Richard, Colette and Elinor all hold hands in a circle around the grave.
**********
Back to the Salvatore house. "Always and forever...even though she locked you in a coffin for ninety years?" Eliot asks.
"We're vampires. Our emotions are heightened. I'm stubborn, Elinor moral, and Nik...Nik has no tolerance for those who disappoint her. Over a thousand years as a family we've all made that mistake at least once. I've made it several times"
"But you still love her?" Eliot asks not understanding the relationship between Colette and Richard.
"She's my sister. And I'm immortal. Should I spend an eternity alone instead? You've heard the story, it's time to go. I said leave, Eliot! I don't know what you're up to, but I'm no longer playing along" Richard starts to get annoyed and angry.
"I'm just looking for one good reason why we shouldn't wake Mikael"
"And I've given you a thousand! But you will anyway. I know you want him to help you kill my sister, I'm not stupid"
"It's no secret that I want Colette dead. She has a hold over Stella's life, and over mine"
"Do what you need. Wake Mikael at your own peril. But make no mistake, if you come after my sister, I will rip you apart. And I get my temper from my father. Now leave!" Richard threatens him.
**********
Richard is pouring himself a glass of scotch. Eliot enters with photos of the cave drawings. "I thought I told you to leave. Twice"
"How do you know that Mikael killed your mother?" Eliot asks him.
"Nik was there. She told me"
"She lied to you"
"And how do you know that?"
"The cave where you carved you family's names is covered in symbols." He shows Richard the photos "The story of your family: how your parents arrived, how they made peace, the spell that turned them into vampires, and this. This is the symbol for hybrid. It's a combination of the werewolf and the vampire symbol. And this is the one for your mother"
"Her necklace"
"And this is the story of her death. The hybrid killed the original witch. Not Mikael. Colette" Eliot reveals.
"No! No, she wouldn't" Richard denies.
"She puts the curse on her, made it so that she would be the only one of her kind, and then she rejected her. With the werewolf gene comes aggression and violence...when she turned, all of that was heightened. She killed her, Richard. And then she made up this entire lie about your father, so that she wouldn't lose you"
"These mean nothing! They're just stupid drawings, done by stupid people who had no idea who my family was!" Richard takes the photos, tears them to pieces, and throws them into the burning fireplace.
"Then why are you so upset?"
"Why are you doing this to me? I've done nothing to you!"
"Colette killed your mother. She has a hold on you, on me, on everyone. She has for a thousand years. We have to make it stop!" Eliot pressures him.
Richard grabs Eliot by the throat and vamps out "Shut up! Shut up! Don't talk anymore! Nothing!" He stops, calms down slightly, and lets go of Eliot. He begins to gasp, falls onto his knees and starts to sob. While Eliot looks at him sadly and guiltily.